@calleking is correct. Seiler takes heartrate as percentages of the heartrate range:
0.6 x (HRmax - HRrest) + HRrest would be 60% HRmax.
Mike
I suppose the very last thing we need is yet another gadget, but during the few weeks that Iâve been training with the Humon (no, I am not getting compensated for âpubbingâ it on forums), I can see some of the fuzziness about nailing down that low intensity threshold that Seiler has mentioned. Yes, he posits 60% of HRR, but also says in the Flo podcast that it could be higher, 65% of HRR or more, or that it could be less than 60% of HRR â it all depends on individual physiology.
I think that, as the SMO2 sensor technology gets more affordable (it would not surprise me to see them under 200 dollars in a few years) that using that gadget in the field to establish LIT is where we will go. The Humon folks have a color-coded data field for Garmins, and if you are âin the green,â youâre in a steady state. Now, you take that with some salt â in the first two minutes of a VO2 interval, you may be âin the green,â but obviously 400w is not sustainable for two hours. A âgreenâ intensity for 2hrs with a lower PE is pretty clearly a low intensity, Seiler Zone 1 effort, though.
Iâve seen that some days, that on many days, 80% of FTP has me at 65% of HRR, and âin the greenâ the whole time. That does not mean it would be that case every day, or that every rider would be able to do 80% FTP and have it be in Seilerâs Zone 1. And, as he says in the podcast, âthatâs why we testâ and âif it was that easy, you wouldnât need me [a physiologist].â
For folks who want to go the polarized route, Iâd suggest an SMO2 sensor. Not a bad way of real-time monitoring what your AeT/LIT isâŚ
how well does the Humon âgreen zoneâ correlate with ânose breathingâ? Ever paid attention to it? I mean, nose breathing is free. Humon is >300⏠over here. If one was only after the AeT/LIT estimate, nose breathing would be the more cost effective (and proven) method.
But I know, we all love our gadgets. Iâm on the fence for this Humon as well. But I already got burned with the BSX, canât really justify the expense.
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Year-round allergies and a twice-deviated septum: Iâm mouth-breathing from the moment I get my bibs on.
But, you raise a good point â there are certainly other measures of AeT.
Instead of nose breathing Iâve heard it defined as the âintensity at which you take first feel the need to take an extra deep breath of airâ test Polarized Training Discussion (Fast Talk podcast & Flo Cycling podcast) - #278 by christhornham
for me its roughly:
- 50-60% ftp
- 50-60% of heart rate range formula 0.5 x (HRmax - HRrest) + HRrest
- 65-75% HRmax
Playing around with my own workouts, I have custom versions of Baxter, Colosseum, and Perkins with reduced intensity to better align with the 50-60% ftp estimate above.
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Episode 68 of the Fast Talk podcast summarizes a bunch of concepts from their past episodes and interviews:
Iâm not sure I agree with all of it, but it does cover a lot of ground for those interested in this topic.
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A good podcast to listen to on my long ride tomorrow!
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Thanks!
This is a great podcast!
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One of their better podcasts i thought. Interesting.
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New retrospective study on elites, this time swimmers:
elite swimmersâ training over the 25 weeks preceding the major competition of the season ⌠retrospective observational study of elite male (n = 60) and female (n = 67) swimmers (46 sprint, 81 middle-distance) over 20 competitive seasons (1992-2012)
For the entire cohort, ~86â90% of the training was swum at an intensity of [La]b â¤4 mmol.L-1. This training volume was divided into 40â44% at <2 mmol.L-1 and 44â46% at 2 to â¤4 mmol.L-1, leaving 6â9.5% at >4â6 mmol.L-1 and 3.5â4.5% at >6 mmol.L-1.
For more details weâll have to wait for the full text:
Thatâs interesting data - thanks for the reference!
@sryke and @robertk, I believe using nose breathing (for LT1, VT1) may work for a certain group of athletes, just like using 60% of HRmax to estimate LT1 may only work for some. For others it might be 70%. But the problem is, I donât know if I belong to that group. But there is another point we should be aware of: are these estimates time invariant? If I test in the lab today and find that my LT1 is at 60% of HRmax, that does that mean it is fixed at 60% of HRmax and I can use this value for the rest of the season? I am not sure about that. The physiological state can vary from day to day, so IMHO, my LT1 could be 60% of HRmax today, but 65% of HRmax tomorrow. Measuring LT1 frequently in the lab is not feasible or affordable. So if SmO2 (Humon) could determine, or at least be accurate at estimating LT1/VT1 every time and keep me in the Z1 when I do a long slow ride, then it would be worth the actual price for me.
wrote some blogs back in January after the velonews podcastsâŚnot a polarized fan for the 98% of us that arenât pro riders.
Blog 1:
Blog 2:
https://www.evoq.bike/blog/2019/1/11/polarized-training-for-cycling-in-2019
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The 3rd installment from Fast Talk: (Discussion starts around 10:30, after the looong introâŚ)
Fair warning, the off-topic around 1 hour in is painful to my ears and patience (Trevorâs lack of a love life 
).
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That was a low point wasnât it!! Almost deleted it at that point. Beginning to struggle with Trevor a bit now tbh. Some decent interval advice near the end but nothing of huge benefit.
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@Supermurph19 I agree about Trevor. I also liked the interval advice. Unlike the first two parts, I liked Seiler reminding mostly Trevor us about duration. I felt like the â80/20â discussions and the first two podcasts really focused too much on intensity. What makes endurance exercise âhardâ is both intensity and duration. Perhaps they heard some pushback and course corrected the message. Either way, good stuff there.
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Just listened to this over 3 nights before bed (the âpodcast hourâ for me), so I may have missed some bits as I was starting to drop off, or might have picked up the wrong end of the stick. Corrections / additions welcome!
Main takeaways were:
- Find the right balance between intensity and duration.
- Note that 4x8min isnât a âmagic bulletâ interval session, itâs just the one that worked the best out of 4x4, 4x8, and 4x16. He said specifically that other lengths and quantities of intervals could work - I canât remember what he suggested but it sounded very similar to Elephants.
- Better to do hold back a bit and recover for the next session than go all-out and knock yourself out for a few days.
- That for racing over 6 minutes, anaerobic interval work has limited use and could even be detrimental to your aerobic power. The prescription seemed to be a maximum 3-4 week âtune-upâ before starting racing.
- That training at a particular intensity doesnât just make you better at that one intensity. A 4x8min session, even though itâs performed at +/-105% FTP, will also improve your 1 minute power, for example.
For me the most contentious point is about the anaerobic work. It seems to suggest that for a 60-90 minute rolling road race, you should still concentrate primarily on the aerobic zone and even actively avoid too much anaerobic work. Whereas the TR prescription (short/general power build, rolling road race speciality) involves a lot of short, high intensity intervals. Are they contradictory or do the two approaches have more in common than it appears?
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Iâm not sure that the two approaches are as far opposed as you have interpreted.
First - I think for any racing where youâre trying to cross the line first they are saying you need a large enough aerobic engine to get you to the finish where you can utilize your anaerobic engine. If you overdevelop your anaerobic capabilities it limits your aerobic engine - but if your aerobic engine is still sufficient to get you to the finish so you can utilize your anaerobic then youâre fine.
What follows from this is that the TrainerRoad approach, which introduces intervals of various lengths, is attempting to balance these whereas the 4x8 approach Seiler is advocating is saying you get the benefits across the board from the longer intervals (as you mentioned).
Second - when they propose you only need a few weeks to tune up race/sprint performance I think they arenât that different from what you see in the speciality plans - the truly all out sprint efforts donât start until late in your plan, close to your race date. The workouts like Spanish Needle are a (relatively) low FTP % to count as anaerobic, and it is the repetition and short recovery that makes the workout hard (and thus a largely aerobic improvement)
The thing that this most recent podcast didnât address, that I found problematic, was the boredom of repeating the same sets over and over again. They did talk about doing the same thing for 3-4 weeks and then changing from 4x8 to 4x4 or similar - but even that would feel overly repetitive to me.
I find the variance we get in the TrainerRoad workouts helpful on a day to day basis. Frankly, if every interval session I had on the calendar for the month of June was exactly the same I would find that more challenging to complete. Obviously everyone will have a different tolerance for this but Iâd have liked them to talk more about how the variance in training can help or hurt motivation instead of simply focusing on how overly complex intervals are not necessary and not worth planning around
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Ah yes, good point well made. Itâs easy to forget how short intervals with short recovery also get aerobic pretty quickly. I suppose the rule of thumb is, are you out of breath? Then itâs at least partly aerobic.
Definitely. Itâs not a TR session, but Iâve got an outdoor session planned tomorrow which is 45 seconds @ 120% followed by a 15 second all-out effort then a 2 minute recovery - 3 sets of 4. And the little bit of extra brainpower it takes to stick to those powers and the combination of different target powers makes it that much more interesting and rewarding to complete.
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yeah⌠truly anaerobic intervals are only like 30s to 1 min and with about 5 min recovery in between. I really feel the TR style short rest, but in âanaerobicâ zone, quickly turn aerobic after the first 2 or 3 or youâll get too much acid buildup in your muscles to complete them as planned.
Just like MTB has a lot of anaerobic surges in there, doing repeats at a high, but not too high level stresses the aerobic system and makes them more repeatable.
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